That's not the only problem people are having with the system, either. While item level is supposed to make it easy to know when loot is an upgrade, the way these traits work actually has the opposite effect. Case in point: Many players are finding out that seven-year-old pieces of armor are more powerful in certain situations. That's without mentioning that players have earned the exact same pieces of Azerite Armor that Gold in WoW Classic, for some weird reason, have different Heart of Azeroth level requirements to unlock their traits despite being the exact same item. Some players have earned Azerite Armor that, bafflingly, doesn't even have any traits—making the item effectively useless.

A few clever players found out that the bonuses offered by Azerite Armor traits can stack and, for a time, were specifically building their gear to maximize this potential. This resulted in some classes being so outrageously overpowered that, for a time, Blizzard had to cancel the new PvP competitive season while they hotfixed the issue. So many of parts of Azerite Armor system are broken that the community has started making jokes like asking when Battle for Azeroth is launching, implying that it's still in beta.

The pursuit of powerful loot is central to what makes World of Warcraft fun. While tackling raid bosses is an enjoyable challenge by itself, the potential of getting a powerful new item out of it is really what motivates players to log back in day after day. More powerful gear enables you to tackle more difficult challenges, which in turn earns you more powerful gear. When that system is working, World of Warcraft is a satisfying loop that can makes hours of every evening melt away. But Azerite Armor is so busted in its current iteration that it robs players of the incentive to take on increasingly difficult activities.

When such a crucial part of an expansion is broken like this, it really has a way of coloring player opinions on everything else Buy WoW Classic Gold. Take Island Expeditions, for example. This new three-player activity tasks players with exploring an island and collecting a certain amount of Azerite before a team of highly intelligent AI foes can do the same. I really like the system, but right now it's the last thing I want to do while playing because its sole reward is Azerite for the Heart of Azeroth. Why would I bother farming up my Heart of Azeroth when the Azerite Armor it empowers is so underwhelming, confusing, and broken?